{"id":460175,"date":"2025-12-20T14:31:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T14:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/460175\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T14:31:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T14:31:26","slug":"rare-sight-of-polar-bear-adoption-caught-on-camera-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/460175\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare sight of polar bear adoption caught on camera \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Adoption occurs in only 1% of polar bear litters.<\/li>\n<li>Adopted cub\u2019s chances of survival improve significantly under maternal care.<\/li>\n<li>Adult female polar bears are tagged with GPS collars to help scientists better understand the animals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Scientists in Canada researching polar bears came upon an unusual discovery this fall when they found a mother bear who had adopted a cub. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The mother was first spotted with one cub in the spring, and in November she was seen again, but this time with two cubs. They were able to verify the cub was not her own, marking the 13th such case of cub adoption within the Western Hudson Bay subpopulation, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\">CBC. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWhen we got confirmation that this was an adoption, I had a lot of mixed feelings, but mostly good,\u201d Alysa McCall, director of conservation outreach and a staff scientist with Polar Bears International, said, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\">CBC. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s just another reason why this species is so incredible, why they\u2019re so fascinating and interesting, and it gives you a lot of hope when you realize that polar bears may be looking out for each other out there,\u201d she added. <\/p>\n<p>When were the polar bears spotted?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">It was in March that Evan Richardson, a polar bear research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, first spotted the mother with one cub while out in the field, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\">CBC. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In November, Richardson was taken aback when he saw the mother again, but this time with two cubs. Two of the bears had been previously tagged with GPS tracking collars. The newly adopted cub did not have one. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The bears were seen during the annual polar bear migration along the Western Hudson Bay in Churchill, Manitoba, which is known as the polar bear capital of the world, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/polar-bear-adoption-video-canada\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/polar-bear-adoption-video-canada\/\">CBS News. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">All three polar bears were captured on camera last month. In the video, they are seen exploring the snow-covered terrain. At one point, one cub hurries toward the mother while the other cub appeared to be waiting for it. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2025\/12\/18\/polar-bear-cub-adoption-canada\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2025\/12\/18\/polar-bear-cub-adoption-canada\/\">The Washington Post<\/a>, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified polar bears as vulnerable. <\/p>\n<p>How rare is adoption among polar bears?<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Richardson said adoption occurs in just 1% of polar bear litters, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2025\/12\/18\/polar-bear-cub-adoption-canada\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2025\/12\/18\/polar-bear-cub-adoption-canada\/\">The Washington Post. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s not that frequent though because in our long-term study we have over 4,600 individual bears that we\u2019ve known over the last 45 years, and literally hundreds and hundreds of litters (of cubs),\u201d Richardson said, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\">CBC. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Researchers estimate the mother is 5 years old, while the cubs are both about 10 to 11 months. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">They don\u2019t know for certain why the mother adopted a lone roaming cub, but Richardson has a hypothesis. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe really think it\u2019s just because polar bears are so maternally charged and such good mothers, and they just can\u2019t leave a cub crying on the tundra. So they pick them up and take them along with them,\u201d he said, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\">CBC. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Typically, polar bear cubs stay with their mothers for two to 2\u00bd years. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s not a lot of time to learn how to be a polar bear, but they do soak up a lot of lessons during that time. The survival rate for cubs to make it to adulthood is around 50% \u2026 but if we learn a cub has no mom, it has almost no chance,\u201d McCall said, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/canada\/manitoba\/polar-bear-cub-adopted-churchill-9.7019054\">CBC. <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Now that it has been adopted and has a mother to teach it the ropes, it has a good chance of reaching adulthood. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Researchers do not know what happened to the biological mother of the adopted cub, but they have collected a genetic data sample that they hope will provide some insight. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The mother is known as X33991 and is being tracked through a research program by Environment and Climate Change Canada and the University of Alberta, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2025\/12\/18\/polar-bear-cub-adoption-canada\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/climate-environment\/2025\/12\/18\/polar-bear-cub-adoption-canada\/\">The Washington Post. <\/a>The program places GPS collars on adult females to track their movements to help understand and protect the animals. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adoption occurs in only 1% of polar bear litters. Adopted cub\u2019s chances of survival improve significantly under maternal&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":460176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[974,159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-460175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-news-feed-national","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115752386889289657","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}